Catheter for guide-wire tracking

ABSTRACT

A catheter (12) for use with a guidewire (14), the catheter being guidable from an external body access site to and into an internal tissue, the catheter comprising: an elongate tubular member having proximal and distal ends and an inner lumen (13) extending between the proximal and distal ends, said member being composed of: a relatively stiff proximal segment (16) for tracking the wire from the access site to a region adjacent the internal tissue; and a relatively flexible distal segment (18) for tracking the wire within the internal tissue; characterised in that the proximal segment (16) has a distal portion and a proximal portion, that the tubular member comprises a relatively stiff tube (20) and a relatively flexible tube (22), one end of one of these tubes being coaxially overlapped with one end of the other of the tubes such that the overlap forms the distal portion only of the proximal segment (16), with the distal segment (18) being a distal extension of the relatively flexible tube (22), and that the distal segment is guidable into the internal tissue along a tortuous path within the internal tissue of at least about 5cm through vessels of less than about 3mm lumen inner diameter. &lt;IMAGE&gt;



